I don't know - I'm still surprised that people actually see ads on the web, thanks to stuff like ad-block extensions.

I do remember seeing some software out there that could detect and remove advertisements from video footage (like blurring out logos and whatnot) - potentially these glasses could allow you to see less ads than in real life.

Because if a company like Google [that's installing internet cables, owns a phone making company like Motorola, and wants to put satellites into space] can get the amount of revenue from a monthly pay system like the big mobile phone companies can, why the hell wouldn't they?

Would you exchange paying your current cellphone contract for a Google contract?[Again, this question is posed in a theoretical 'perfect-privacy' world where Google respects your privacy and doesn't follow you around and gives you the option to turn off all that shit and have it automatically trigger when you need it.]

Excerpt: After all, if for some reason we want to see what the world looks like while we’re looking at something more interesting, we can be taking pictures with the hidden camera inside our goggles. We can photograph the people who stagger past us, tilting their heads strangely as they scroll and click, until they get hit by a taxi driver whose cloud was not managing the guidance system in full synchrony with realtime... After the streets and highways have been more or less rendered impassable by carnage for a year or two, a few state legislatures will pass a bill to make it an offense to wear the goggles when driving in a nursery school zone or piloting a jet plane. Anything beyond that would infringe on our self-evident Constitutional right to access information, interface with our loved ones, and play games about killing people at all times in all places simultaneously.

I love new technology, but I also love a good bit of snark when it's on the nose XD

I do remember seeing some software out there that could detect and remove advertisements from video footage (like blurring out logos and whatnot) - potentially these glasses could allow you to see less ads than in real life.

I think that having things in your field of vision go blurry or blank out would be at least as distracting as having logos in view. :/

I do remember seeing some software out there that could detect and remove advertisements from video footage (like blurring out logos and whatnot) - potentially these glasses could allow you to see less ads than in real life.

A brilliant idea. Why not extend that further and have an extension that allows people to filter out other things IRL that they find objectionable...like Poor or homeless people, Bankers, Mac Users, Hipsters, Fat People, Other Races, the list could be endless....

And after all , google are not averse to filtering their own search results to satisfy the demands of governments in certain locations, so why not have them filter out potentially politically 'difficult' things IRL too - like falun gong posters in China for example.

(nb, I am making these points merely as talking points and do not necessarilly think that either will happen, but still the point is there to be made.)

@Verissimus - can you extrapolate that a little? I'm intrigued because I don't think I'm fully aware of all that Google is. I'm never sure how many steps behind them I am...though I know I'm behind them.

The impression I got from that youtube vid is that this thing would just continually feed you with ads.

I think it would be intrusive as hell. I like my unaugmented vision as it is.

edit: Ah I actually mistook the video Oldhat put there as the real thing, sorry!

Anyway, the second part of my reply still stands. I don't like it.

Also, the guy asks: "Where is the music section?" and his Google glasses immediately realize he needs to find the music section in the store he's in? Does google really have a voice interface that works that way??

It's a bit of a leap to go from removing corporate logos to racism and other discrimination. The possibility is there, but the funding is unlikely to be. (The monetary incentive for removing corporate logos is to not have your ass sued off if you release something with a companies logo in it).

And yeah, Google does filter it's search results to match laws, but they do so because that's the law. I would take up with the government in question rather than Google (and personally, I'd point the finger of blame at the DMCA more often than I would at Chinese laws).

@Verissimus:

They probably do have the tech. I don't really know anything about how voice interface software works on the nitty-gritty end, but the essential parts of that command are pretty simple ("where" and "music", coupled with a GPS that can tell that you are in a particular store).

@morac Heh, not sure if my satirical intent was quite as obvious there as it was intended. (falon gong being a quasi-religious group whose existence is erased from official chinese news channels - searches for their name on Chinese Google are filtered. /thread derailment

Perhaps they should get Roddy Piper to star in the next project-vision video... /They Live reference

Regarding the voice interface, I am curious about how hard it would be to have a system that worked by tracking eye movement and blinking. Which would look more ridiculous; people muttering to themselves or walking down the street with twitching faces?

Once again, it has proved out over and over with each new try that people will not wear computers on their faces in large enough numbers to justify mass producing the technology.

I love computers, the future, my smartphone, my iPad, my nook... I will not wear a computer on my face unless it becomes medically necessary for some reason. Just like I won't walk around with a Bluetooth earpiece. Or roll around town on a Segway.

These are technologies the design of which makes users look like tools. They are rejected by the market every time.

Very rarely do I look at a shiny new piece of tech and thing "Gah!", heavily infused with "Get that thing away from me!" and overlaid with "I hate this." I could only watch a minute of the video due to my immediate and intense dislike of the product. Plus, much as I love Google's search engine, those glasses give Google a whole new level of information to data-mine.

I think we're a bit past the 'people won't use this because they'll look dumb' phase. Convenience > looking stupid. Previous attempts at portable head-mounted displays didn't have nearly the amount of information gathering or display technology that this is likely to have.

That is absolutely not true. People put themselves to great inconvenience not to look stupid. The only thing that even permits bluetooth earpieces to remain minimally popular is that they aren't sitting in front of your face, which is the thing that will kill these and all "goggles", and still people widely view those among us who walk down the street chattering into bluetooth earpieces as assholes. Because they are layering their own private business in front of themselves as they walk in public. These glasses are even worse. This attempt at a portable head mounted display will crash and burn as badly as all the others have.

You'll notice in the video they never show the guy's face, and the girl he is chatting with is not wearing the glasses. Because they would look like assholes.

Imagine walking into a bookstore, eyes bizarrely focused, and asking the thin air where the music section is instead of just, oh, I don't know, glancing around the store? Asking a clerk? You think that person won't look like a self absorbed tool?

This very effect will kill these things. I'll buy you dinner, David, wherever you are, if one year from now this is a viable product.

The 'this won't sell because people don't want to look stupid' argument doesn't fly. You won't buy one because you think you'll look like an asshole, fine. People at large do things that make them look like assholes all the time.

And it's not like Google is being coy about howthesethingswilllook. It's a concept video for the user experience, not a walkthrough of the device, ffs.